Father by any other name
by HoshisamaValmor
Summary: Conversations about complicated family relationships and what a father role is.


Author's Note: This was originally part of a much longer fic I've now discarded for a number of reasons.

This is better read/intended to be read/written/whatever back-to-back with my other fic 'Alone'.

Disclaimer: Don't own Shingeki no Kyojin.

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Kenny wasn't gonna lie.

It felt fucking good to be back up here. Not that he had buried himself Underground during the previous years; he had made his sporadic climbs up the dirt shithole into the open-aired-slightly-less-shithole, but never more than a couple of days. He would be fast to return Underground.

Now, he truly, decisively and permanently, would not step foot on anything remotely close to the Underground again.

Kenny was done.

It was done and he had the rest of his life to live.

"And it feels fucking good!" he shouted rather loudly, catching the surprised glances Uri's and Rod's shot at him, standing alone on the field. Kenny ignored both of them and readjusted his hat on his head, still looking up defyingly at the sun and comfortably sheltering his eyes from the bright light. His head had long stopped throbbing, his body again fully adjusted to living over ground and having sunlight shine for twelve hours over his hat and cooking his skull.

That was a little something most people didn't even considered at all, so natural and constant for them, but for Underground rats as himself, that first impact of sunlight really was something physically painful. And Kenny faced pain with defiance. So fuck the sun. Kenny was back to be basked under it.

Uri had quite a few errands to take care of around the city, or maybe it was Rod that had those, whatever. For the past week, they had stayed around the countryside on their family's estate. Kenny didn't bother even thinking why that was. He was enjoying the free time as it was, so whenever Uri wanted to go somewhere or send him to deal with some meetings with those boring ass cult followers or whatever, he would do so.

For now, he was enjoying himself.

With Rod leaving a day later, even if for a short while, it was even better. Kenny never liked the fella much at all. Uri had got all the guts, brain and power, while the other man was just a stupid bastard.

"Kenny."

"Huh."

Uri approached, that soft frequent smile still the exact same as it always was. Stupidly empathic, lined with a trace of sadness, and always slightly all-too-knowingly.

"We'll stay here for another couple days until Rod returns."

"Alright," Kenny shrugged. "I'm actually missing the city, but I like it here. Was just thinkin' that again."

"A lot of open air."

"Well, it _is_ the fucking countryside, Uri."

The man gave that familiar chuckle, standing beside Kenny. Shit, he was short. Kenny hadn't really forgot about it either, but damn he was a midget. Size really didn't measure a man's worth.

"I missed our conversations. Although the letters weren't bad at all."

"I haven't written one in a while. Missed me much, did ya?"

"May I ask you something, Kenny?"

"Sure thing, King."

Uri shook his head, still smiling as usual. Kenny saw the man search for a place to sit down, deciding to just lay on the grass like a commoner, like he wasn't the most powerful person in this world. Like they were equals.

Kenny brushed that thought aside quickly, putting up his normal snarl and sharp mental remarks. Uri sitting down; man, he was in for a longass chat. He missed those chats, though.

"What happened to the boy?"

Kenny flinched and the snarl grew.

"Uh?"

"The boy you spoke of in the letters."

Well forget everything else. Guts, brain and power and whatever else, but Uri was also pretty damn annoyingly inconvenient.

Kenny shot him a side glance. Uri, sitting down as he was, looked like a fucking child. He didn't have a superior grin, or sarcastic - sure, it was that all-knowingly-kinda-thing, but not in a bad way. He was just waiting for Kenny to answer, not pushing further if Kenny didn't engage.

"Why're ya askin'?" And there he was engaging.

"I admit, I've always been curious since that very first letter when you said you would take a longer stay in the Underground."

"Why curious?"

"Well... for every reason, really."

Kenny side eyed him again and snorted. Uri wasn't pushing, so he could dismiss the subject entirely and leave it be to some other time the man would feel like it - maybe never. Instead, Kenny decided against better judgement to sit next to Uri. _That_ was engaging; maybe, if he tried to make an excuse for himself as to why he decided to sit down, he could say he was just avoiding to get tired. His white coat was used to be dirtied with stuff worse than grass, so better sit down from the start than grow cramps after a while standing.

"Did something happen?"

"To what?"

"The boy."

"Why would it've happened anythin'?"

"You've returned."

"Fucking late as it is."

"So he's moved on with his life?"

That sounded so corny. "Yeah, whatever. I've moved on with mine."

"How old is the boy now?"

"Ah! Hell if I know!"

"I certainly do not." Something in Uri's voice was stern. Stern in that way no one else would dare direct at Kenny, much less having the effect of making Kenny stop to revise his words and wonder the cause of the tone. Nevertheless, Kenny still frowned, not too happy to be indirectly scolded and commanded. 'Cause that was what Uri was doing.

"I don't know. Eleven I think. Twelve. Don't know. Somethin' like that."

Uri's eyes widened slightly and he blinked.

"He was little more than a babe when you found him then. I honestly thought he was an older teenager, from the very first time you mentioned you had taken a boy under your wing."

"I didn't say that."

"That was what I assumed from the letters, and I wasn't wrong. I was wrong in his age, however."

Kenny snorted loudly.

"What the fuck do you think I did, wipe his ass and change his diapers? He was fucking old already."

"Old? As in what, four? Five?"

"What does it fucking matter, Uri?!"

Uri blinked again, perfectly calm, and yet that serious veil darkened his features. He waited for Kenny to be visibly calm down again before he spoke.

"Nothing about my questions is strange, Kenny, given the fact that we're talking about a child you've been helping."

"What's strange is why ya'd be asking to begin with. What, you want him to take my place someday? Ah, he doesn't give a shit about being an Ackerman." Then it occurred him: "Well shit, I don't even know if he knows he's an Ackerman."

A soft frown appeared on Uri's face now. "So the boy is important to you. Where did you leave him? I know you see this as meddling, but..."

"Well ya are meddling, and have been already, but ya're the King, right?"

"You of all people know that hardly means anything when it comes to me forcing answers out of you," Uri reminded with an half smile that did not really reach his eyes.

Kenny scoffed loudly. But it was kinda only half true. Uri could not control his thoughts even he wanted to. Kenny was free to do or say what he wanted, and yet more often than not...

There was another small pause. The soft nature sounds around them echoed for that moment. "The boy is safe, then, I assume."

"Yeah, he's safe. He's learned." Uri might have had a different opinion on the issue, but the issue wasn't his to comment at all.

"Did he have any other male figures in his life?"

Kenny thought about the drunkards at the bars he took Levi to. He thought further back, not needing too much imagination, to imagine the employers and clients of the brothel Levi would have hanged around.

"Hell if I know."

"He must be sharp."

"He's a pain in the ass."

"Never one to compliment people, are you, Kenny."

Kenny snorted and Uri sighed.

"He's strong. Fast. Stubborn as hell, but learns. That was the whole point."

"I'm sure of it. He must have tried to impress you."

"Impress me? Only if it was being annoying. Once, he..." Kenny cut himself mid sentence. He hadn't thought about that for a long while, and somehow he immediately realized this was the kind of shit Uri was expecting and wanting to hear him say, for whatever the fuck reason he was interrogating Kenny to begin with.

Kenny squinted at the man accusingly, to which Uri merely smiled innocently. That smile brought small wrinkles on the corners of Uri's eyes.

The smartass.

"What?"

"Ya're a little shit, ya know that, _'King'_."

"Whatever did I do?" Oh he knew pretty damn well what. "You were saying? Once, he...?"

There were a lot of 'onces'. Once he was too weak to walk but yet sharp enough to talk back at Kenny, once he proved Kenny's complains wrong and stole a handful of cash for them, once he pretended to be drunk to prove Kenny wrong again on the issue, once he smiled proudly of a new technique he developed while he thought Kenny wasn't seeing, once he woke up so startled he couldn't breathe right and he cowered away from Kenny. Once he acted like a damn pest and Kenny shook him about to make him learn, once he was so terrified it showed even Kenny that Levi was scared of him. Once he asked about the sky, once he started laughing to of nowhere and acting like a child for once, playing around like the brat he was. Once his hand closed around Kenny's arm, the closest thing any of them would allow for a hug or some form of human demonstration of affection, and leaned his head against Kenny's shoulder.

Once.

There were a lot of onces and Kenny had grown tired of them. Life moves on, no strings attached.

The silence made Uri nod his head and leave that question.

"You made it sound earlier that you have no plan to go back."

"I don't."

"Why not, Kenny? I'm sure you've overcome whatever bad memories about the Underground you might have had."

It wasn't like that. Kenny shrugged, and ended up saying that outloud, as the only thing that came to mind as a reply.

"Maybe it is kind of like that. Only the other way around."

"Uh? Don't tangle me around words, Uri, ya know I can't really stand much of that."

"You don't want to face good memories again regarding the boy?"

Kenny was glad he hadn't been drinking anything right then. He hadn't been planning to die on this day, much less such choking over such a stupid ass question like that.

"Are ya fucking mistaking me for some other throat cutter, Uri? Do I look like someone else to ya?"

"You looked after him," Uri replied simply, even shrugging uncharacteristically. Kenny narrowed his gaze.

"Yeah, that was kinda the plan to-"

"You surely kept him fed."

"Damn brat wouldn't learn if he didn't eat, ain't it? But-"

"Taught him?"

"That was the whole fucking point!"

"Gave him somewhere to sleep?"

"Most of the time, yeah, but he didn't sleep anyway."

"Why?" Uri asked, interrupting his chain of dumb questions. Not that this wasn't another dumb question, but his tone changed from the previous mockery.

"Fuck if I know." It was his turn to shrug, but Kenny had a lot more right to. "He had bad dreams, got all tangled up and cried when he was younger and didn't like me seeing so I pretended I didn't."

"What did you do then? Did you really just leave him be?"

"Uh? When he cried? What the fuck was I to- Why the interrogation anyway?" Kenny finally added, irritated.

"I'm genuinely curious."

"Bah, I don't know! I talked to him or somethin', but he doesn't like that kinda shit and I don't have patience either so I left him be until he stopped crying."

The look on Uri's face suggested something slightly different, as if he was adding a sort of _'or stopped noting'_ in his head.

"Levi's not a normal kid, ya wouldn't know. He fights off sleep like a fucking disease but then just sits there in the damn darkness bug eyed and shivering." He could recall it so vividly he just wanted to slap the kid even in his memories, even though, like when he was actually in presence of such moments, Kenny knew it would have done more harm than good to actually mess with the brat. "It was fucking annoying as hell. I wanted to shake him up, more often than not, but argh, whatever."

"It wouldn't have been helpful. The boy must have had a rough life as it was, before meeting you. Not that it was certainly a paradise after that."

He scoffed.

"No, it wasn't."

"He must have been grateful though."

"What? Levi? Ah! Ya really don't know what ya're talkin' about, Uri." He should have been! But Levi, grateful? Ah.

"I don't know him, indeed, but I'm just... thinking about it. He must have looked up to you and want you to like him. Every child does that to parents."

Kenny wasn't the brightest man alive; he would be the first - ok, maybe second - person to admit it, but even he could see where Uri was aimed at.

"Don't fucking go there, alright? I didn't fucking throw birthday parties, I don't even know or care when the brat was born. When I _did_ find out the date, I didn't bother wasting time on such a stupid thing. He had to work to get food, otherwise he'd just get some spare crumbs. He didn't want to see dead people but I made him watch so he'd learn. I watched him lose fights and get his ass kicked without batting an eye. I fucking beat him over when he disobeyed me, and beat him a little more when he became a fucking annoying defying teenager. " He wasn't lying, but he was shouting all the things that came to mind to shock Uri. He wasn't sure if it worked, but at least there _was_ a reaction on the other man. "So don't you fucking start seeing me as a savior, goodie two shoes daddy."

"You're far from being a perfect man, Kenny."

"Damn right I ain't."

"But despite that. He might have not been your son, but you certainly were a parent to him."

"No I wasn't. I'm not a fucking father."

"You acted as one, regardless if you're his uncle by blood and not father."

Kenny squinted at Uri again, this time raising his head suspiciously. He remained like this for three whole seconds, probably looking comical to Uri and threatening to anyone else that might have seen him.

"Who the fuck said he's my nephew?"

"Same family name. You acting out of unexpected protective instinct. With that much age difference, brothers becomes less likely a possibility. A son would not have been impossible, but somehow, and as horrible as it sounds and paints your picture, I doubt you would have cared as much if it was your own child. But being the son of a close sibling immediately justifies the protection, if not for the boy himself, whom you probably never met before, for what he represents as the child of a loved one."

Kenny squinted so much his forehead started hurting.

Why had it been that he hadn't killed Uri, again? Ah, yeah, the bigass Titan hand he had crashing around Kenny.

"We weren't close," he added despite it. Uri had some effect in him, not the Coordinate, but something, as he always had since the moment his life was spared by the King. If he wasn't careful, Kenny could easily start talking about shit he didn't want to. "But she died, and left him behind. She was fucking stupid to have birthed a brat to this world."

Uri nodded, his expression heavy now.

"You're sure the boy is taken care after on the Underground?"

"You don't know Levi. He's tough. I trained him, remember. He knows how to get by and get out of trouble."

"Regardless whatever training you gave him and regardless knowing him or not, what I do know is that he's a child."

"He'll fucking grow up. And if he's soft he'll stop being soft soon enough 'cause life's gonna teach him shit worse than I did. I gave him the means to get back at the shit that'll hit him. That was the only reason I stayed with him. I'm not gonna be there to fix his broken wing. That's what parents do. I'm not anyone's fucking parent."

"Your family is safe, Kenny. He can-"

"He can live his own life. Not mine."

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the end

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Author's Note: I'm in a process of mental cleansing and so all the stories will have weaker writing and simple plots, but I prefer that to continue like I have until now.

I have a lot of young Levi and Kenny fics, independent but form a continuity between them. This one would take place after all of those, and there are some references from those other fics.

I imagine and write Kenny as a neglecting figure over an abusing person, however, that doesn't fully exclude the possibility that he was physically violent at times (over the fact that neglect and other stuff he put Levi through are psychological violence and that I believe Levi suffered plenty). Both Kenny and Levi are violent men. I have written stiffer situations between the two, but never one that involved Kenny actually hitting Levi.

Thanks for reading, please point out mistakes and reviews are appreciated.


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